Strategic Plan
Brief History of the Organization
Since the inception of Bidco manufacturing Limited, four managers (founders) have run the company. However, three of them decided to sell their shares to a new foreign investor who now holds majority shares. The change in ownership has necessitated a change in management. However, the company experiences several human resource and management problems that form the framework for this paper’s research problem.
These challenges are experienced from the need to implement change in the organization. This paper therefore provides a critical analysis of the human resource and managerial issues facing the organization with an aim of recommending viable strategies that can be used to overcome these challenges. However, before embarking on this process, it is important to understand the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats through the SWOT analysis below
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Among the greatest strengths of Bidco is its highly competent and experienced staff. For example, the company has four competent and experienced project design engineers who are due to retire in two years. These engineers form part of a highly competent employee workforce who are fast ageing. This threat highlights the need to transfer their knowledge to younger employees. The mechanism for transferring such skills and knowledge will however be analyzed in subsequent sections of this paper.
The second strength of the company is its well cut out roles for the employees. Different employee roles do not therefore clash with one another and every employee is satisfied with the quantity of work allocated to them. By extension, this scenario facilitates the realization of employee satisfaction.
For instance, the company has ten qualified tooling refurbishment engineers who have their roles well cut out. These employees do not experience work burnouts and are very satisfied with their work. Therefore, the proper allocation of job volumes within most departments reduces instances of employee work overload and overall dissatisfaction with their work. This is a great strength for the company.
Finally, a diverse customer base is another area of key competence for the company. It is reported that the company’s customer base consists of about 15% high-precision and high-variety shaft productions; 45% low-precision and low variety productions; 20% individual orders for single items or small batches; 10% refurbishments of metal forms, frames, casting and injection moulds; and 10% services for automotive first tier suppliers.
These facts show that the company’s customer base is very diverse and flexible because it is not focused on only one aspect of production. This is a very positive attribute for the company because it minimizes the market risks associated with producing for only one customer pool.
Opportunities
The use of new technology for Bidco’s manufacturing process is one area of key interest that exposes the company’s potential to succeed in its operations. It is reported that most of the company’s operations exclude automated services. For example, most of the company’s engineering drawings and designs are done manually.
There is an existing opportunity for including automated services in the company’s operations as another strategy for improving the company’s efficiency of production. Moreover, automating the company’s services will lead to more profitability at a reduced cost.
Weakness
Among the greatest weakness for Bidco is its small number of competent employees (compared to the number of skilled employees). There are a few skilled employees in the organization but most of them are close to retirement. In fact, concerning the company’s expansion plans, only one engineer is currently competent enough to oversee the development of new CNC centers for the company.
High employee turnover is also another strong weakness for the company. Disgruntled young employees who leave the company after working for barely two years cause this situation. A high employee turnover is not good for business because it affects the knowledge base, job familiarity and personalities of existing employees. Finally, another area of key weakness for Bidco is the high competencies needed to undertake manual works in the workplace.
This limitation should not necessarily be an area of weakness for the organization but because the organization lacks enough competent staff, it is a strong area of weakness. Therefore, since the organization lacks enough skilled personnel, the quality of manual works within the organization may be compromised (because the process requires highly competent employees). Since this situation may have far-reaching implications on the organization’s operations, it is an area of key weakness.
Threats
Dropping profit levels threaten the future sustainability of Bidco’s existence because it limits the possibility of the company to undertake expansionary activities and sustain its internal operations. With the dwindling profit levels (over the last few years of the company’s operations), the company may have to shut down its operations if it does not realize a growth curve for the company’s profits.
For example, it is estimated that less than a decade, the company’s annual profit has dropped from about six million pounds to one million pounds. This is a threatening situation for the company because it shows a drastic fall in profits (which may affect negatively the company’s bottom-line).
Increased competition from emerging economies is also another big threat to the company’s operations because it may affect the company’s competitiveness and profitability. Indeed, it is projected that increased competition from emerging economies such as China and India will further dent the prospects of making future profits for the company.
If this situation is not contained through effective marketing and competitive strategies, the company may face the bleak possibility of shutting down. The fatal nature of this possibility highlights the threatening nature of competition in the company’s operations.
The following table summarizes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats outlined above
Vision and Mission Statement
Bidco manufacturing limited has been suffering from several human resource and managerial challenges. These challenges outline the framework for the company’s mission and vision statement. The company’s vision is centered on producing quality products to satisfy customer needs.
This vision is informed by the company’s commitment to make its production processes more efficient. For instance, the company intends to change its manufacturing process from a push to pull strategy so that it can produce products of high quality. The company’s vision is therefore to produce quality products that will be able to compete with other competitive products in the market.
Improvement Initiatives
Since Bidco’s vision is centered on producing quality products, most of its improvement initiatives will be aimed at fulfilling this vision. Nonetheless, the improvement initiatives highlighted in this paper will be aimed at fulfilling the four C’s (competence, cost effectiveness, commitment, and congruence) rule (Kandula 2004). To highlight the congruence rule, the first improvement initiative is to empower untrained and semiskilled employees to form a formidable workforce.
For instance, of the 40 machine tool operators, only 25% of the workforce are skilled and have high technical skills. About 50% of this workforce is semiskilled and another 25% only have the basic training needed to do their jobs. From these statistics, it is evident that a lot of potential lies unexploited because the full worker potential is not being tapped into. From the inefficiencies explained above, the fact that about 20% of the entire workforce perform below par is explained.
There is therefore a great opportunity that exists in training unskilled and semi skilled workers to improve the company’s performance. To reiterate the above sentiments, it is explained that, the company’s machine tools stock is manual and the only hope that the company has is utilizing the present highly skilled staff to use these equipment efficiently (for better production). It is also estimated that if the company automates its machine tools and equipments, it can produce better quality products.
This strategy is viable, although the company needs to invest more resources in training old employees on how to use the new equipment. In fact, it is projected that the current crop of employees are already highly skilled and therefore they only need to undergo a minimal training program to bring them up to speed with the workings of the new machine tools. This is a great opportunity for the company to improve the efficiency of its operations.
Another area of improvement, which highlights the congruence rule, is the need to improve employee cohesion (Kandula 2004). Currently, Bidco suffers from a lack of employee cohesion. This situation inhibits any possibility of realizing the benefits of teamwork. According to a recent report investigating employee performance, it was established that, there is a clear segregation of employees into four groups.
One group comprises of old employees (those who have worked in the organization for more than a decade) and another group comprises of employees who are about to retire. The last group comprises of young employees who have worked in the organization for barely two years.
These employee groups seem to lack cohesion. For example, old employees consistently blame the young employees for the dwindling standards of job quality. The employees are therefore clearly subdivided but the most unfortunate fact about this scenario is that it is very difficult to realize good productivity in such a situation (Kandula 2004). Improving employee cohesion is therefore set to improve employee performance and contribute to the organization’s vision of producing quality products.
Finally, the poor relationship between employees and management (alienation) highlights the “commitment” rule of the 4 C’s rule (Kandula 2004). Currently, there is a clear breakdown of communication between the employees and the management. Employees feel alienated by the management and they do not understand their role in the organization.
From this understanding, it is difficult to cultivate loyalty, or improve the performance of the organization/employees according to the expectations of the 4 C’s rule (Kandula 2004). It is therefore difficult to implement the management’s wishes in such a scenario and it is equally difficult to realize worker satisfaction in such kind of an environment.
This scenario has contributed to poor employee performance and work standards in the organization. Reorganizing the organizational structure to include lower-level employees at the top of the managerial pyramid will improve the relationship between employees and management. This is another improvement initiative that needs to be implemented at Bidco.
Human Resource Management Issues
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Resourcing and Legal Issues
The changes anticipated for Bidco manufacturing limited are ambitious. Even though change is inevitable, there needs to be a right framework to implement such changes. Resourcing and legal issues characterizing organizational change mainly characterize this framework. More importantly, an organization needs to have the right crop of employees to implement new changes in the organization (Anderson 2010).
Nonetheless, this company analysis highlights the importance of eliminating the organizational inefficiencies that have been previously highlighted in this paper. Such inefficiencies include redundancies and poor working practices. However, before we embark on the process of identifying how to eliminate these inefficiencies, it is crucial to understand how change is implemented in the organization.
Cameron (2009) acknowledges that different people react differently to change. This opinion is informed by the fact that everybody has different needs that ought to be met in the change management process.
Similarly, Cameron (2009) also acknowledges that change is often associated with a loss, and different people cope with loss in different ways. Finally, Arora (2003) purports that it is important to manage expectations (relating to change management) realistically, and there is bound to be fear whenever a change process is about to take place.
Different researchers have explained the change process in different ways. Indeed, many researchers have developed different models to explain change in the workplace.
However, of great importance is the preconditions to be met before effective change are realized. Wallin (2010) explains that a sense of urgency; a strong guiding coalition during the change implementation process; a clear organizational vision and a clear communication of the organization’s vision are important preconditions to be met before (or during) the change implementation process.
Though the above preconditions are important in realizing effective change in the workplace, Singh (2009, p. 440) explains that the empowerment of other people, the plan to create short-term wins, the consolidation of improvements to inspire more change within the organization and the institutionalization of new approaches in the workplace are also important preconditions to be met when implementing change.
The above preconditions for change management highlight several discrepancies in the change plan for Bidco manufacturing Limited. More importantly, they highlight crucial areas of change implementation that need improvement (Kotter 1996). Based on this understanding, the subsequent section of this paper highlights key areas of improvement for the change management process.
According to Wallin (2010), there needs to be a clear guiding coalition for effective change management to occur. According to Sollecito (2011), this guiding coalition can be best understood under the importance of effective management and leadership in change management.
The concepts of leadership and management are important in implementing change management within the organization because both concepts have a role to play in the change management process (Bush 2003). Hiatt (2003) explains that effective change management requires effective leadership because it sets the direction and vision for new changes in the organizational processes. The leader therefore champions the new direction that the organization intends to follow.
Upon identification of the new organizational direction, the role of management in the change management process becomes very profound because management will organize the organizational resources towards the realization of a new organizational vision (Kotter 1990). The importance of management and leadership cannot be underestimated in the change management process because both concepts need to be in play for effective change to be realized (Marquis 2009).
For instance, leadership mainly focuses on formulating new organizational directions but it bears little importance to charting the strategies of achieving these new organizational directions (Beerel 2009). Therefore, leadership requires a different organizational wing to pick up the pieces of its process and formulate the strategies that will make the new organizational direction to be achieved.
This is the role of management. Similarly, managements cannot work without effective leadership because they are subject to leadership (since they ensure that the wishes of the organizational leader are realized). The following diagram explains this relationship
Source; Leadership vs. Management (n.d).
From the above diagram, it is seen that management is subject to leadership. Explicitly, management forms the foundation for good leadership. For instance, in a sports game, the role of the referee can be equated to the role of management because the referee ensures that the laid down rules are followed. By extension, his role is supervisory because he ensures that the rules of the game are implemented. Here, status quo is maintained. Leadership is the only concept that can change the status quo.
At Bidco manufacturing Limited, a clear leadership and management gap hinders the true realization of effective change within the organization. The poor transition between previous managers and present managers has created a sense of confusion among employees.
The employees were used to the traditional way of organization management where the initial four founders of the company ran the company the way they knew. However, with the change of management, most employees are confused about who is truly in charge of the company.
This confusion is still mirrored when ascertaining who will lead the change management process. The employees are confused about the influence of the new investor who holds the majority company shares, the role of the existing manager (from the four initial managers) and the role of the new manager who is required to oversee the daily operations of the organization. The greatest confusion regarding these three centers of power emanates from the old habits of the organization where the organization’s owners (only) wielded power.
Here, there was little room to doubt the powers of the four initial managers because they were the company’s owners and managers. Now, it is difficult to ascertain who truly wields the organizational powers because one of the four initial managers still exists and commands a lot of respect from the employees but there is a new majority shareholder now.
The new company ownership has brought new changes to the company’s management structure and the new management (organizational structure) questions popular ideology regarding organizational management. From this confusion, there is no guiding coalition for the achievement of organizational change. Based on this understanding alone, Kotter (1996) predicts that it would not be successful to implement change in such an environment.
Kotter (1996) also outlines that an organization needs to have a clear-cut vision for its change management process for effective transition to occur. Bidco manufacturing Ltd does not have any identifiable vision that guides the organization’s change process. In fact, it is reported that many employees feel very confused about their role in the organization because there is no clear organizational vision that should guide employee efforts.
Paton (2008) stipulates that in the absence of an organizational vision, very little may be done in the organization. He equates this situation to a scenario where an organization may be having a lot done in its operating life but having no focus regarding where it intends to be in the future. The following diagram shows the extent that a company’s organizational vision has on different aspects of the organization’s operations.
Source: Organizational change is Systemic (n.d.)
Clearly, from the above diagram, we can see that an organization’s vision, outlines a company’s organizational structure, work processes, tools and people inputs. From this understanding, the organizational vision therefore provides direction to the company’s operations and dictates the allocation of resources to specific projects.
Therefore, only projects, which complement the organziation’s vision, receive the first priority for resource allocation. It is easier to effect organizational change under this environment as opposed to a situation where there is no clear identifiable vision for the organization. The lack of clear goals is therefore another area of key weakness for the company if it intends to realize effective change in the workplace.
Organizational Structure, Grouping and Team working
Close to the limitation of a lack of organizational vision is the sheer lack of a formal structure to communicate with lower level employees. Kotter (1996) stipulates that there needs to be a clear breakdown of the organizational vision to lower level workers if proper change is to be realized in the organization. Bidco manufacturing Ltd does not meet this precondition because there is a strong discord between the management and the employees.
This situation was brought about by the change of management but it should not be allowed to prevail any longer than is necessary because it inhibits the realization of change management in the organization. It is due to the discord between the management and the employees that many employees do not understand the roles they have to play in the organization (or which direction the company is expected to take in the future).
Another strong limitation for the realization of effective change in the organization is the lack of subdivision of duties or roles in the organization because the company does not have any clear demarcation between the roles of the HR department, marketing department, logistics department or financial department.
Kotter (1996) explains that the institutionalization of new approaches in the organization is an important addition to the change management process because the new approaches need to be integrated into the core operations of the company.
The lack of clear demarcation of duties and roles between the different organizational departments poses a challenge to the institutionalization of new changes because there will be a lot of confusion regarding which departments should institutionalize what aspects of the change management process. Therefore, there should be a clear understanding of the departmental roles in the organization so that it is easier to identify which aspects of the change management process should be institutionalized (under different departments).
Nicotera (2003) explains that organizational structure is also another crucial component of the organizational operations (that have a strong influence on the realization of effective change in the company). She defines the organizational structure to constitute several issues of operations such as task allocation, supervision, coordination of duties and the likes.
The influence of the organizational structure comes from the fact that it forms the framework where different organizational functions are based on. Therefore, by extension, the organizational structure forms the framework where all change management processes will be based on.
Focusing on Bidco manufacturing Ltd, it is evident that the company’s organizational culture does not support productive groupings or teamwork. In fact, the organizational structure does not support teamwork or positive groupings. The company’s workforce is disintegrated into small groups, which are defined by their work experience and employment duration in the company. None of these parameters forms the right framework for positive group work or teamwork in the organization.
In fact, as explained in earlier sections of this paper, these groupings lack cohesion to the extent that they blame one another for poor work quality. When such factors are in play, it is very difficult to realize positive outcomes of the change management process. Effective change management requires the employees to work together towards realizing the common goal of positive change in the organization (Kotter 1996).
Organizational Culture and Information Systems
Close to the importance of realizing positive organizational change is the importance of having a complementary corporate culture that supports change. The greatest challenge to understanding corporate culture is its intangibility because it is more of a feeling than a set of policy or rules governing the operations of the organization.
Different organizations have different corporate cultures and the differences or similarities in corporate cultures can be gauged from what the organizations pride in, what the organizations deem to be important and even what the employees wear (Nicotera 2003). For example, the organizational culture of a profit-centered business may differ with the organizational culture of a religious-based institution. Similarly, the organizational culture of a hospital may differ from the organizational culture of a university.
Bidco manufacturing Ltd has a club culture. A club culture is one among four types of cultures proposed by researcher, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, as the main types of organizational cultures characterizing many organizations today (Schein 2010, p. 166).
Concerning the club culture, Sonnenfeld explained that, “The most important requirement for employees in this culture is to fit into the group. Usually employees start at the bottom and stay with the organization. The organization promotes from within and highly values seniority” (Schein 2010, p. 166).
The company’s organizational culture sheds light on the organization’s information systems as well. Clearly, from Bidco’s historical operations, the company’s activities were closely knit within the organization. Therefore, the company’s managers mainly influenced the company’s information systems.
There was very little influence from outsiders because the organization was mainly ran by the four initial managers. In addition, the managers had a close relationship with their employees because there were fewer layers of organizational hierarchy when compared to most organizations today. This reason explains why the last manager (who did not sell his shares) enjoys a good relationship with the employees.
Furthermore, as part of the company’s information systems, seniority is highly valued in the organization because older employees tend to command more power than young employees do. In fact, the highly skilled workers are close to their retirement age while the unskilled and semiskilled workers are the young employees who have worked for less than five years in the organization. These dynamics explain the club culture in the organization and the nature (or influencing factors) of the company’s information systems.
Skills Training, Development, Appraisals and Motivation
Concerning the daily operations Bidco manufacturing Ltd, the company’s organizational culture bears little importance to skill transfer, training, development and employee appraisals. This observation is supported by the unbalanced distribution of specialized skills in the company.
As explained in earlier sections of this paper, young employees are either semi skilled or unskilled while the old employees are skilled. This situation exposes the poor mechanisms for skill transfer in the organization because if there was a workable formula for transferring skills, there would be an even distribution of skilled workers in the organization.
The uneven skill distribution among the employees also exposes the poor training and development strategy of the company because the new employees who have been introduced in the organization are not equipped to deal with complicated manufacturing processes.
A sound training and development program for the organization would result in an even skill distribution because all employees would be empowered to handle even the most difficult tasks. The gap in skill transition manifests the importance of introducing a coaching and mentorship program in the organization (Tajmel 2009, p. 175). However, these programs will be discussed sufficiently in subsequent sections of this paper.
Nonetheless, it is also reported that there is a high employee turnover in the organization (especially among young employees) because many leave the organization after working for about two years. In addition, there is a sense of disgruntlement among the general workforce regarding the management and how the organization is run. These attributes expose a low level of employee satisfaction in the organization.
Furthermore, there is little evidence to show that employee appraisals are done in the organization because workers have a lot of negativity regarding the organization’s operations.
The company’s corporate culture therefore exhibits a low regard for employee input and almost explicitly, it fails to appreciate the importance of employees in realizing the organizational vision. The poor human resource strategies adopted by the organization is one reason why there is a declining employee performance and poor work quality within the organization.
Lyster (2007) explains that there is a direct relationship between employee appraisals and improved employee performance. Organizations that have a positive employee appraisals system benefit from increased employee motivation and improved worker output. An effective appraisal system appreciates employee input and encourages new employees to improve their input for positive recognition (Perry 2006).
Organizations normally undertake different employee appraisal programs like attaching a material reward for positive worker performance while others only acknowledge positive worker performance (verbally) (Drenth 2001, p. 59). Both programs have a positive impact on the employees.
Clearly, Bidco manufacturing Ltd does not have any of such systems in place. There is therefore a strong need to improve the company’s human resource strategies to resonate a positive outlook of the change management process. These improvements are discussed below.
Future Directions
Change Management Plan
There are many limitations highlighted in Bidco’s operations. Most of the limitations highlighted here border on shortfalls in the managerial and human resource strategies of the organization. Nonetheless, there is a clear need of adopting new changes in the organization to keep up with the changing business environment and the growing operational challenges of the organization.
For example, considering the growing competition from emerging economies, the organization should improve its value addition processes and stop looking at its limitations of production if it intends to stay relevant in future. This aspect of the change management plan highlights the “cost-effectiveness” rule of the 4 C’s methodology for improving the performance of human resource departments.
So far, we have seen that, the company has wasted enough time thinking about its inadequacies in keeping the competition at a non-threatening level. Now, it is time that the organization adopts a proactive measure of developing quality products through an effective value addition process. This aspect of the change management process should be adopted as an immediate improvement to the company’s production strategy.
Another improvement that should be made to the company’s production strategy centers on the wasted person-hours attributed to inefficiencies in the production process. Most of these inefficiencies are centered on how the production manager allocates different tasks in the organization.
For example, every employee is allocated one machine and when the machines have to switch tasks, the employees have to wait for the transition to complete. This is an area of inefficiency in the production process, which leads to wasted person-hours of about three hours per employee. There is therefore a strong need to improve operator efficiency from the current 60% to higher levels.
There are also other inefficiencies currently reported in the production processes concerning the structure of work shifts. Currently, employees work on two shifts that are distributed across two periods (6am – 2 pm and 2 pm – 10 pm). Some employees have to report to work early so that they set the machines and warm them up before the actual production process starts.
This production strategy is inefficient because it introduces new areas of inefficiencies in the production process. To eliminate these inefficiencies, there is a need to synchronize the existing shifts to allow for a 24-hour production process that will eliminate the need to pay employees to report to work early and set the machines for the day. This system will improve the company’s production capacity and provide better opportunities for employees to make extra money.
Coincidentally, this system will also solve production problems, which are associated with avoiding small batch orders because of inefficiencies in spare production capacities. Historically, the company has always avoided small batch orders in place of high batch orders that are less profitable because of insufficient spare capacity. Operating a 24-hour shift will increase the spare capacity and provide an opportunity for the company to process small batches, thereby improving its profitability in the end.
The above strategies highlight the improvements to be made in the production and managerial strategies. However, to correct the shortcomings of the company’s human resource strategies, the company’s management needs to adopt a more subtle approach of managing the workforce.
Already, we have established that effective change cannot be realized in the organization if the employees are not on board. The company already suffers from poor employee cohesion and it is still faced with the challenge of implementing a new management structure in the organization. In addition, we have already established that only one manager enjoys widespread employee approval while the others have still not earned employee trust.
This situation manifests an area of key weakness for implementing organizational change because it will be difficult for the new management to implement new changes to the organization if they have not won employee trust. Furthermore, there may be more opposition from older workers regarding the change process. Such a situation may further disintegrate the workers into groups that want change and those that do not support change.
To correct this area of weakness, there is a strong need to use the worker union to mobilize employees and encourage them to work with one another. It is reported that about 40% of all employees in the company work blue-collar jobs and are part of the union while another 60% of the workforce (who work in the white-collar segment) are equally enrolled in the union.
The union therefore presents a good platform for unifying all employees. This platform should be exploited to unify the employees and get its management to support the change management process. This initiative therefore requires the identification of a union head that should be integrated into the company’s management team so that the employees do not feel alienated by the management whenever important decisions are made.
Organizational Development
Concerning the skill gap between new and old employees, a mentorship program needs to be introduced as the core of the organizational development process. This initiative highlights the “competence” rule of the 4 C’s human resource methodology. Researchers have documented the effectiveness of mentorship programs in transferring skills from old to new employees.
Wallace (2010) explains that mentorship programs not only prepare the young crop of new employees to take up managerial challenges; it also reduces employee turnover. Evidence of improved motivational levels has also been reported in the implementation of employee mentorship programs because research shows that mentorship programs make the job more interesting (Murrell 1999).
Interestingly, it is also observed that mentors also benefit from mentoring programs because they also get to learn new things during the process. For example, mentors get to be better socialized, more relaxed and more networked after (or during) the mentorship process (White 2010, p. 137).
Several companies have benefitted by implementing mentorship programs. Successful stories have been documented in IBM, Nationwide insurance and other companies that have acknowledged the importance of implementing a mentorship program (Murrell 1999).
Bidco manufacturing limited should therefore implement a mentorship program to benefit from improved employee cohesion and an even skill pool across all departments. Every old and experienced employee should therefore be allocated a group of young, skilled or semiskilled workers so that they can learn the ropes of managing complex manufacturing processes.
By the time the old employees are ready to retire, the young employees should be able to take up the position of their mentors. Establishing a mentorship program in the organization should be able to accomplish two objectives: improved employee cohesion and improved employee skills. Improved employee cohesion will be attained when the mentors and their protégés work together in the mentorship exercise (Wallace 2008, p. 262).
Here, they will be able to exchange ideas regarding important organizational processes and ultimately, they will get to learn a lot from one another (regarding their personalities, hopes, expectations and the likes). Through this perspective, the rift between old and new employees will also be eliminated and instances of finger pointing will seize to exist (regarding the production of poor quality products).
Overall, employee performance will improve and improved employee cohesion will be realized. Consequently, it will be easier to introduce teamwork and groupings within the organization because the employees would be working together now. Such an environment is conducive for implementing organizational change.
Recommendations and Conclusion
Strategic planning involves determining an organization’s future direction through the allocation of corporate resources to meet the organization’s goals (Armstrong 2009, p. 26). However, before companies decide on the right strategic move to take, it is important to understand the current situation of the business and the possible opportunities that exists for growth. Goodstein (1993) explains that the formulation of a company’s strategic plan includes the understanding of the company’s goals, mission and vision.
Regarding Bidco’s operations, several human resource and management issues have been identified to impede the prospects of business growth. However, based on the change management process and organizational development plans of this study, it is important to highlight that the 4 C’s rule for revamping an organization’s human resource performance has been sufficiently met.
Implementing a mentorship program and undertaking a comprehensive review of the business operations to improve operational efficiencies meets the requirements of the “competence” and “commitment” rules (because it highlights the organization’s commitment to attract, keep and develop employees).
Here, the organization meets the competence rule by mentoring young employees to improve their skills. Ultimately, the organization will have a better skilled and competent workforce. Such an initiative also exposes the management’s commitment towards the welfare of the employees.
This new conviction by the company’s management will meet the “commitment” rule and exposes the opportunities to improve employee loyalty and commitment towards the organization. The improvements in the production manufacturing processes of the company also meet the requirements of the “cost-effectiveness rule” because the recommendation to shift to a 24-hour production system increases the organization’s efficiency, thereby reducing operational costs in the end.
In fulfillment of the “congruence” rule, this paper proposes the use of the employee union platform and mentorship programs to boost employee cooperation. The implementation of these programs highlights how a shift in the human resource policies will work towards maintaining cooperation among different employee groups.
These policies should work in two phases. The first phase touches on realizing employee cohesiveness among themselves and the second phase touches on employee cohesiveness with management. These operational areas should receive a lot of attention from management because they are the determinants of the organization’s success.
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